


set the whole world on fire

by fictorium



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alien Amnesty, Alien Mythology/Religion, Aliens, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Religious, Anal Sex, Blasphemy, Breathplay, Catholic Guilt, Catholicism, F/F, Hiding, Hiding in Plain Sight, Human Trafficking, I'm Going to Hell, Inaccurate Catholicism, Nuns, Oral Sex, Pervertibles, Sacrilege, Undercover, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, Witness Protection, and in front of it, and you get the idea, like Sister Act a little but really just an excuse for sacrilegious acts performed on an altar, there aren't enough Hail Marys in the world
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-06
Packaged: 2020-01-04 23:10:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18353645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictorium/pseuds/fictorium
Summary: Cat has used her media empire to expose the criminal activities of a dangerous mob who've been trafficking aliens. When she has to go into witness protection, the agent in charge puts her in the safest place she knows: a convent that's been a refuge to aliens and humans alike, including that agent's own sister.Less than pleased to be facing down her own lapsed Catholicism, Cat finds unexpected beauty in the enforced simple life. But when her desire is sparked, it leads to acts that are decidedly less than holy.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> AU that was supposed to be a PWP but ended up having a lot of P. Please don't read if it will offend your religious beliefs. I was raised Catholic so I know exactly what I'm besmirching, sorry.  
> Check the tags or please ask if you have any concerns before diving in!

When the DEO agents come for her, Cat is packed and ready. She’s never lost the ability to throw a go bag together in under five minutes, even though her closet and her choices have expanded exponentially since she was stalking red carpets for a quote, or courthouses for official word of a celebrity divorce. 

“Ms Grant, your sons--”

“I’ve made my own arrangements; they’re both safe.” Cat will trust the government to protect her, she’s their witness after all. When it comes to her boys she’s putting her faith in eye-watering sums of money and private security in countries that her enemies won’t be able to pronounce, never mind locate on a map. Once this is all over, when the convictions finally come down, she’ll be able to bring Carter and Adam home. That’s the last thread of sanity she’s hanging on to, and she’s truly hanging on for dear life as she’s bundled out of her anonymous hotel room and along the corridor to a service elevator.

The posse they’ve sent is impressive at least. Ten agents, all armed to the teeth and built like linebackers. All except the red-haired lead agent, who despite her slender frame still looks like she’ll kick seven shades of shit out of anyone who even looks at them funny. It’s a quality Cat has always admired in her bodyguards, and while this isn’t quite the same setup, she’s putting her life and her ability to return and lead her company in the hands of this Agent… Danvers, wasn’t it? They’re not big on repeating their names, these shadowy types, and they’re probably fake in the first place. 

As the SUV doors slam and the tires squeal in a fast getaway, Cat finally lets herself relax back against the leather seat. Hulking men in front and in back, and the tough woman beside her. Acceptable, as configurations go.

“So, Agent,” she says ten minutes later when they’re approaching the city limits. “What’s my fate for the next, what? Six months? Twelve?” Cat bites down the sick feeling in her throat at the thought of not seeing Carter for that long. With Adam, at least, she’s used to it. 

“Ms Grant, we don’t have a trial date yet--”

“Still, there must be a location. New Mexico? Alaska? Or have your people seen sense and realised that hiding in a city is far less conspicuous than in a small town?”

“We are aware of that,” Agent Danvers replies, checking some device at her wrist. “But protocol says no verbal or written confirmation of your safe harbor before arrival. You’ll have to exercise some patience.”

“Oh well, ask the people who work for me how that’s going to go,” Cat suggests, slumping a little against her seat, wishing she’d thought to bring a book. All her devices have been confiscated, some flunky at the DEO is going to monitor them for tracking or hacking attempts. She’s cut off from the world, and realising just what that means is starting to terrify her. 

Agent Danvers pulls her kevlar off at the velcro strip for a moment, fishing around inside her tactical jacket. Cat’s more than a little surprised when she pulls out a copy of Anna Karenina and hands it over, fixing her armor like it was never disturbed.

“I always like something to read on long trips,” is all that comes by way of explanation. Cat opens to the prologue, lets the station and its steam trains slip over her like a familiar blanket. It’s a little comfort, a little something to hold on to. The overhead light is dim, but it’s enough to read the well-worn pages by. 

“Thank you,” she mutters as they speed on through the night. When they pass the airports--commercial and private--she says nothing. Clearly, someone has a plan, and Cat has every reason to believe it’s the competent woman next to her.

***

When Cat is gently tapped on the shoulder, she wakes with a start. Falling asleep was never the plan, she can’t risk that with the people who are after her. Blinking in confusion, she sees their little formation has pulled in at a rest stop, the other cars barricading hers from sight of the road.

“If you need the facilities…” Agent Danvers gestures with a tilt of her head. “They’re about as clean as we’ll get in these parts.”

Cat feels the automatic revulsion rise up at the thought. “How much longer will we be on the road if I skip it?”

“I can’t tell you exactly, but if it’s not urgent now, then you should be fine.”

Good. Some kind of confirmation that this drive won’t be endless. Cat realises she’s thirsty, reaches for her purse. 

“What do you need?” Danvers asks. “If you’re getting out of the car it’s a three-guard formation, so if you just need gum it’s quicker for one of us.”

“Bottled water,” Cat says. “And yes, some gum would be good. Mint.” It’s a long way from her personally-stocked bar and hand-crafted snacks. She wonders how the building will react to her absence tomorrow. There’s nothing in the diary, no message left for assistants and department heads not to panic. Getting a jump on any would-be followers was the main thing. That’s why they bundled her out as soon as the last employee had left the building.

Judging by the way it’s getting light, tomorrow is already here.

She takes the water from whichever agent passes it over, and presses the cold plastic against her forehead, past caring what the condensation might do to whatever’s left of her foundation. 

“Move out,” Agent Danvers commands, and soon they’re back on the long, dark road, where Cat succumbs to sleep once more.

***

This time there’s no gentleness to how she wakes. There’s the rattle of rough ground to jolt her, then the glare of a flashlight in her face. The voices are barely a mumble, definitely an argument, and Cat tries desperately to overhear as she fumbles with her seatbelt.

“Wait.” It’s Danvers, leaning back in the car and keeping Cat in place with one hand. “I’ll tell you when we go.”

It’s getting tedious already, this secrecy and black ops by night crap. Cat wonders if she shouldn’t have just disappeared herself along with Carter, but that would have meant never coming back, and worse, this gang of jumped up thugs getting away with it. No, CatCo has exposed them and Cat herself will be the star witness who puts those alien-trafficking sons-of-bitches behind bars for good. She knows too much about the cruelty they’ve inflicted to ever let them rest easy. 

“Okay.” Danvers removes her hand from Cat’s shoulder. “Bring your bag and let’s go.”

Of all the things Cat is expecting when she steps out of the car, when her eyes have adjusting to the various bobbing flashlights in what feels like a dark parking lot, it most certainly isn’t the looming spire of a church. A bunker, sure. Maybe an abandoned warehouse with some hidden lair inside it. Fuck, Cat would take a cave in Afghanistan over organised religion. She’s a Catholic so lapsed they need to find a new word for it. This better be some kind of Methodist halfway house. 

To her dismay, they’re actually going into the church. She could assume it’s a front, but she knows the scent of incense and the linseed oil that seems regulation for polishing the pews. Cat might not believe that men in robes live in the sky--maybe that’s what Star Wars is about?--but she knows the feel of a real church. Decades, if not centuries of human belief hums in the stones of the place. All that desperation, all that love. Their needs and their thanks and their minor requests, all trapped in marble and concrete. There’s no mistaking those vibrations, and Cat would know them anywhere. 

Even part of her still knows it’s wrong to be marching down the side aisle with armed guards. A door in back of the altar opens, and Cat’s blood runs cold at the sight of them. She’s never been good around religious figures, hell, she was escorted out of the Vatican by the Swiss Guards for questioning Pope Francis too vigorously. Now a little phalanx of nuns is bearing down on her, and Cat’s beginning to think she should take her chances with the mob. 

The group of bodies around her offers no escape, and so she watches with queasy interest as Agent Danvers speaks to the oldest nun, clearly Mother Superior. The younger ones standing behind her seem nervous, eyeing the men and their guns like they might open fire any moment. 

“It’s been a while, Agent,” Mother Superior greets her. “I trust our messages have been reaching you. I notice I didn’t get one about this visit.”

“We had to fly especially under the radar,” Danvers explains, jerking her head in Cat’s direction. “M’gann, sorry, Sister… I need you to do me one more favor. I don’t suppose you know who this is--”

“She’s that media woman,” M’gann supplies, and Cat tries her very best not to pout. That hardly encompasses her achievements, and honestly coming from someone who probably doesn’t even have a television, it’s quite rich really. “Is she in trouble?”

“I am.” Cat decides it’s about time she spoke for herself. “There are men--terrible, evil men--who’ve been hurting a lot of people. I have evidence that will stop them, so they want me dead. I was _supposed_ to be entering witness protection. Instead, here we are.”

M’gann looks Cat up and down, and she wishes she’d taken more time to get presentable after exiting the car. Still, she holds her chin up and squares her shoulders. She won’t be shamed for doing the right thing. If this is a pit stop on the way to her more secure life, then so be it. Unless the nuns have a fake ID ring on the side, what else could it be?

“We’ll take her,” the nun sighs, and there’s something in her stance that makes Cat think her life has not always been within the cloisters. “But on one condition, Alex.”

“Name it, Sister. We need a safe haven, and you’re it.”

“Before I do, how do we know we can trust these men of yours?”

The man closest to Cat speaks up, and she notices him for the first time, his broad shoulders and quiet authority.

“Because I can do this,” he says, and although Cat doesn’t see or hear anything, M’gann’s eyes widen in shock.

“You?” Whatever she says next is in a language Cat doesn’t recognise. It seems enough to satisfy the nun’s concerns at least. 

“The condition?” Alex asks, looking around their small group with some urgency. “Because we need to get the cars away from here before sun up.”

“Kara will be her guardian, her introduction to the convent. If there is any threat, any exposure brought upon us by Ms Grant, then it will be brought on Kara too. If we have reason to expel her, we will expel them both.”

One of the young women reacts to the statement before Alex can, placing herself between the agent and Mother Superior.

“I accept,” she says, nodding towards Cat. Those eyes are blue and the smile is genuine, but there’s a sadness lurking somewhere under the surface that Cat thinks she almost recognises. “Alex, don’t fight her on this. We always knew this would be the cost one day. And I’m sure Ms Grant won’t do anything to draw attention to her living here with us.”

“Living here?” Cat can’t help but blurt out. “Wait, I thought maybe an overnight, last place anyone expected, yadda yadda… how exactly am I going to live in a convent without standing out like… well, like I always do?” She gestures to herself, knowing the effect even when she’s not at her best. 

The weighted silence she gets in response means for her to figure it out herself. 

“Ohhhhh no. No way.” Cat tries to back away but the guard who had spoken before is as solid as a wall behind her. Wherever she looks she sees black-clad muscles or guns. Everywhere but the three nuns, watching her expectantly. Only when Cat’s shoulders slump in defeat does Agent Danvers approach.

“This is the safest place I know of. It’s the last place anyone will look, and there are people here who can help to protect you, if you work with them. Mostly, just keep your head down. Write a memoir or learn how to crochet or something. But look like just another nun while you do it, understood?”

“I would never have agreed to this, if you’d told me.”

“I know, Ms Grant. That’s why I didn’t tell you.”

Mother Superior coughs gently, a hint to get on with it. The guards fall back and Cat has no choice but to approach the altar and be accepted into their ranks. When she looks back at her entourage, they’re already out the door and into the night.

“Don’t worry,” the one called Kara whispers as they pass through the hidden door and into the convent proper. “You get used to it. You’ll see.”

Cat has never been one for that sunny kind of optimism. She clutches her bag tighter and follows the other women down the hall.

***

Her bravado holds out long enough to endure the brisk tour, with Mother Superior’s muttered instructions that feature _must not_ every bit as often as Cat’s lonely Catholic school had. The panic she’d felt back then rises, the clutching need to escape at the first opportunity. Only this time she can’t call her mother and plead to come home. They haven’t spoken since Cat arranged a protective detail for her, too.

_Honestly, Kitty. Can’t you even do this job without attracting trouble? I don’t recall Diane Sawyer having to put her family in hiding._

There were times it was almost tempting to direct the mobsters her way. Cat shakes off the horrible thought as she’s shown to her room. 

Well. Cell is more accurate. She stares in dismay at the bare stone walls, empty of anything but a needlessly elaborate wooden cross, Jesus picked out in bronze right down to the drips of blood from his hands. Cheerful. That won’t inspire nightmares at all. 

The girl assigned to her hangs back in the doorway as Cat takes the few steps into the room that the space allows. It’s like one of her assistants for a moment, all that’s missing is a notepad or tablet. 

“Thank you, Keira,” Cat says, waving her off. She’s tempted to ask the girl to stay, start peppering her with questions, but the room is already too claustrophobic without another body in it. “You can go about your day now. Pray hard, or whatever it is you do.”

“We already had morning prayers, at six,” she replies. “And it’s Kara. Or Sister, whatever you, um, prefer.”

Well, the quiet nun can stand up for herself. Who would have thought? It’s hard to tell under those black flowing robes, but there’s something pleasantly sturdy about the girl. Some kind of Kansas-corny country breeding that makes her seem substantial in a way that pleases Cat on some level. 

“Well, I’ll need some time to settle in. For a start, we’ll have to tell the concierge that I expected an en suite. And I’ll need a pillow menu. One and flat isn’t really an option.” She gets a bewildered stare when she looks over. “It’s really okay, Kara. I’d just like to be alone.”

“No one here is ever truly alone,” Kara says, all sad and solemn. “But I’m right next door, usually. Only now I have to go tend to the gardens. Come down when you’re ready, it’s right at the bottom of the stairs. Fresh air might be good.”

“Thank you.” Cat supposes good manners won’t cost her much, and she’s in no mood to get satisfaction from beating up on a novice. Well, she seems to have the same robes as the others, but the innocence is still radiating off her. 

The other girl appears just as Kara is finally departing, her brown eyes curious and cold, more like the nuns Cat remembers from childhood. She’s holding a bundle of fabrics. 

“Your habit,” she explains, setting it down on the bed when Cat recoils in horror. “And a change of sheets, you must change once a week. Your shoes will be acceptable for now, but you’ll find something more appropriate in the linen cupboard. That’s where you can store your bag and its contents, too.”

“I really can’t wear my own clothes?” Cat asks. She doesn’t have much with her, but assumed she would be able to pick up some things along the way. She secreted plenty of cash in the lining of the bag, and has a clutch of pre-paid credit cards ordered online and completely untraceable. “It’s not like I’m going to suddenly get religion.”

“You must,” the other nun says, her tone brooking no argument. “If found outside of your cell or the bathrooms without your habit, you will be stripped and redressed as necessary.”

Twenty-four hours ago, Cat would have laughed in the face of such a threat. Then she remembers the emails graphically detailing how those men would torture and kill her, what they’d do to her sons. 

“I understand,” she says.

“Come, Sister Siobhan,” Kara says quietly. “Let’s leave Ms Grant to commune with our Father a while. She’ll need his help to settle in here.”

They shuffle off, and Cat sits on the single bed, wincing at its lack of comfort. She drops her bag at her feet, lowers her head into her hands, and cries.

***

An unscheduled nap clears her head a little, and Cat is pleased to find that if she must share a bathroom, the white tiles and porcelain have been scrubbed and bleached within an inch of their structural integrity. That, she can cope with. Back in her cell, she surveys the pile of clothing again. How hard can it be? She’s been undercover before. Mostly as a nail technician or a masseuse to try and gather celebrity gossip, but Cat had become too recognizable too quickly to get away with those tricks for long.

Nothing else for it, she would have to get on with it. And the very first time Agent Danvers came to check on her, Cat would demand proper witness protection. Even Albuquerque had to be nicer than this. 

She strips with brisk efficiency, cleaning up as best she can with a bar of soap and the small sink in the corner. The cold water is bracing, brings back her focus and reminds Cat why this is necessary. She’ll sleep on a bed of nails if she has to, so long as she brings these assholes to justice. The crime scene photos she’s seen, the additional research from her team, it haunts her every time she closes her eyes. That might never go away, but this isn’t the naive gossip journalist who caves to pressure. She’s Cat Grant, CEO and most powerful person in National City. If she has to hide for a while to achieve the greater goal of locking up scumbags, she can do it. 

She’s drying off with a small, rough towel when there comes a knock on her cell door. A door that doesn’t ever close all the way, as an additional bonus. She hastily pulls on the clean underwear she looked out, and asks who it is. 

Kara. Of course.

“Come in, then,” Cat says without thinking. “Actually, I might need your help to get this sackcloth on. Do the ashes come separately?”

Kara just stands there, a little slack-jawed and blushing. Right, modesty. Cat has changed in front of dressers and staffers too many times to be embarrassed about standing around in her skivvies. The chill in the stone-walled room is giving her pause, and nipples that could cut glass. Something Kara seems to notice on her second attempt at eye contact, rendering her speechless and a new shade of deep pink for her trouble.

“So what goes on first?” Cat asks, figuring a task might snap the girl out of it. “I don’t want to end up strangled by a crucifix.”

Kara sifts through the garments, pulling out a simple black robe with huge sleeves. Cat survived that during Madonna’s ‘Ray of Light’ renaissance, she’ll manage it again. She pulls it on, surprised that the material isn’t too coarse. Of course, it’s built to last. They’re not expected to have seven hanging on the rail for each day of the week after all. 

“Then you put your tunic on top,” Kara says, holding it up with slightly trembling fingers. Clearly Cat makes her nervous, but just by being a heathen or is something else at play here?

“You know Agent Danvers?”

Kara nods, and that open expression of hers shuts down fast. She pushes the tunic at Cat, who slips it into place, frowning at the lack of shape in what she’s wearing. 

“Did you want me to cut your hair before you put your veil on?” Kara asks. “Not all the sisters go very short, not anymore, but vanity can prevent us from serving God fully.”

“Nobody comes near my hair with scissors unless they’ve styled at least three Oscar-winners,” Cat says by way of a warning. “And I don’t know how much you understood when I arrived, but I’m not actually here for worship. At best, I might get some mindfulness and meditation crap, if I can remember any of the exercises.”

“Oh, you don’t have to believe in their Catholic God,” Kara says, suddenly cheerful. “Well, I think the cloistered nuns all do. But we sisters come from a variety of… faiths. Sister M’gann is very open to that.”

Cat’s wheels are turning as she turns the veil over in her hands. There’s no way to get out of it, not if she wants to protect what’s left of her latest cut and blowout. Who knows how many of these women will get snip-happy without asking first? 

“Wait, a ‘variety of’? You were going to say places, weren’t you? Goddamn, Agent Danvers. You’re better than I thought.”

“She is?” 

“Yes, clearly this is some kind of safe haven for aliens as well as humans. You just all happen to share a certain religious devotion. Tell me, Kara. Which are you? You said _their_ God, does that mean you’re not Catholic?”

Kara shakes her head.

“And you’re not human either, are you? I think you might be too nice to be human.”

Kara blushes again, though Cat is fully covered by now. “Many humans are nice, Ms… actually we’ll have to think of what your name here should be. Sister… Cat doesn’t sound quite right.”

“No, I suppose not.” Cat sighs, one that seems to come from her knees. “Let’s complete the Catholic school hellscape flashback and they can call me Sister Catherine, if they must. But when we’re alone like this, do you think you could call me Cat? Just to keep a little bit of normalcy, because otherwise I think I could lose my mind in a place like this.” 

“You won’t,” Kara says, stepping in closer and laying a hand on Cat’s covered forearm. “Truly, it doesn’t look like much but this is a home for so many of us. We’ll all welcome you, I promise.”

“You’re very kind,” Cat says, absentmindedly reaching out to touch Kara’s cheek, inordinately pleased when the girl doesn’t flinch. “Why don’t we get this ridiculous thing on my head and you can take me to meet the other penguins, hmm?”

“Penguins?” Kara repeats, before looking down at her habit and smiling. “Oh! I like that!”

Of course she does, Cat thinks, restricting her comments to a fond eye roll. “Chop, chop,” she chides, more gently than she ever would have in the office. “I can’t wait to see this home of yours.”

***

Cat’s open-minded cooperation soon meets its limits. 

The food is appalling, worse even than the last time she went on a cleanse retreat with Oprah, not long after Carter was born and the baby weight wasn’t shifting. She dreams, when she can sleep on her uncomfortable slab of a bed, of cheeseburgers and lettuce wraps and two fingers of Scotch older than herself to wash it all down. 

The convent itself feels more like a set from Orange is the New Black than anything that Michaelangelo might have painted the ceiling of. Countless wings and corridors are closed off, left in disrepair and dust that it pains Cat to see. With a little investment, with a few more skilled volunteers, this building could be something majestic.

Which would be a problem anyway, since entirely rundown is the overall vibe of the neighborhood. From the little Cat can see from behind the fences, most of the lots on either side are vacant, and the only thriving businesses in the area are the biker bar across the street, and the pawn shop two doors down from it. 

Sister Siobhan takes against Cat from the off, perhaps out of jealousy that Kara was asked to be her keeper, or just pure spite. Whenever she’s in charge of doling out tasks or portions, Cat can be sure she’ll get the worst and the smallest. It’s hard to mind much though, since Kara usually swaps or offers some of her own food to make up the difference; Cat never accepts, but the offers make her feel cared for all the same. 

Kara’s main responsibility is the garden, an oasis of greenery that breaks up the dismal landscape. It’s also where the vegetables and fruit thrive before the kitchen can turn them into disturbing grey mush, so Cat soon learns to spend her largely free time watching Kara turn over the dirt and a hundred other tasks that leave her with sweat on her brow and dirt on her hands. 

Cat reads her borrowed, well, stolen copy of Anna Karenina cover-to-cover twice before another paperback is pressed into her hands as she sits on the garden’s only bench, ready to watch Kara work.

“Don’t worry, it’s not a Bible,” Kara says, a naughty grin on her face for once. “Although I’m sure Sister Siobhan would have some verses she thinks you need to study.”

“I bet.” 

Cat turns the book over to see its title: Jane Eyre. Tears spring to her eyes, quite unexpectedly. It was the first ‘grown up’ book her father ever gave her, this very same edition. She knows the colors and the typesetting as well as she knows the lines of her sons’ faces. Kara may not realize it, but this is a most precious gift. 

“I didn’t want you to get bored, so I slipped into the Lost Property boxes when Sister Lillian wasn’t looking. I’ll have to do some extra penance, but I think it’s worth it? You do like it?”

Unable to gather her thoughts quite yet, Cat nods. With Kara so close by, it’s only natural to stand and hug her, and although Kara tenses at first, she’s soon hugging back like someone just discovering the practice. If they linger a minute or so too long, Cat can’t say she cares. She’s missed her daily affection with Carter, even the casual air kisses and shallow hugs with her friends. 

“It’s just a book,” Kara says when they finally part. She’s wearing the modified version of her usual habit, the ones they wear for work that’s dirty or particularly hot, and gardening is both. “My sister is coming today, I think. Sister M’gann told me I don’t need to come in for evening prayers, and that’s usually what that means. Did she say anything to you?”

“Your sister?” Cat repeats, momentarily confused. “Why would she… wait, Agent Danvers is your sister?”

Kara freezes for a moment, realizing she’s given away more than she intended. “Uh, she… well, my foster family? And Alex is, yeah… I thought I mentioned it already? She’s my sister. She’s the one who found me a place here, five years ago.”

“You’ve been here five years?” Cat has been fishing for details daily, and now it’s like an entire herd of salmon has suddenly started leaping out of the stream. She doesn’t know which thread to tug on first. “Five years ago there were the wildfires, but that doesn’t… wait, the Alien Registration Act?”

“I had to go off grid,” Kara says, eyes downcast. “You already guessed I’m not human, so I suppose it’s only fair I confirm that at last. I’m actually Kryptonian. I pray to Rao, the sun god, even though he died along with my planet when I was thirteen.”

“I read about Krypton,” Cat says. “But I was a teenager when the planet… when that all happened. Either you time traveled, or there’s some kind of moisturiser in all that mud that you’d better start sharing.”

“It’s complicated,” is all Kara will tell her. “But I’m here now, and while it was safe at first just to be discreet, these days…”

“The people I’m hiding from, they’ve been trafficking aliens. Mostly beautiful young women like you, but sometimes children, other times anyone strong enough to be underpaid for their labor. The treatment has been…” Cat doesn’t want to burden Kara with the details, she already has enough pain to carry. “I’m going to stop them. They’ll pay for what they’ve done, and they won’t hurt anyone else. Your sister had the right idea, I think.”

“You can tell her that, when she comes to check on us.”

“Maybe I will.”

***

“Are you moving me?” Cat demands, out of the stupid nun’s habit for her meeting with Alex, tucked into the back pew of the chapel. “What were you thinking, putting me with your own sister?”

“Kara told you?” Danvers looks surprised for the first time in her weeks of being Cat’s handler. 

“Yes, and you’ve been visibly with me plenty of times, right up until we got the hell out of Dodge. That didn’t seem like a risky play to you?”

Alex leans forward, resting her forehead against the polished wooden pew. The whole place smells of incense and linseed oil, which Cat has grown to find quite comforting in its own strange way. Sometimes, when she comes into this space to meditate, she imagines her father praying at her side, his big hands clasped in front of his face like all those years ago. 

“I’m out of plays. The department has a leak, and I can’t find the mole. This was the best I could do while keeping the details out of the paperwork.”

“How do you know it wasn’t one of the team of Hemsworths you had as my detail?” Cat asks.

“Because I broke a whole bunch of rules by having their minds read before we came to get you, and their memories wiped after. You… you can’t tell anyone that. Especially not Kara. She gets upset about aliens using their powers to help a government that practically hunts them.”

“Well, Kryptonians are a noble people by all accounts. I can see where she’d take issue.”

“She told you that?” Alex looks at Cat with something like wonder. “Kara has never…”

“She didn’t mention having powers,” Cat continues. “Do I need to be worried about her reading my thoughts?” It’s a skill Cat would have killed for in countless interviews, or back when she had to stake out the red carpet for asinine quotes. Her real panic is this concept of being wiped, but she doesn’t want to tip her hand to Agent Danvers on that point. There are very few people left to trust, but Cat knows better than to trust any one person absolutely.

“No, nothing like that. A few physical advantages. No doubt she’ll show you, if she’s told you this much. I should go see her. I parked a few blocks away, and it’s a rental rather than government plates, but still. I keep my visits short, Ms Grant.”

“That’s Sister Catherine for now,” she says with a sigh. “At least until you come back here with a court date.”

“You’re keeping busy? Keeping your mind active?” Alex asks, already on her feet to go find Kara. 

“Don’t worry about me, Agent. I always find ways to occupy my time.”

***

The routine isn’t as stifling as Cat expects. She has no real duties, just wanders from area to area, helping the sisters who will accept it from her. Some, like Sister Siobhan, refuse her at every turn. Others, like Sister Nia and Sister Leslie, take her help with good grace and a grunt respectively. Cat rediscovers her neglected sewing skills, does what she can in the kitchen to mitigate the daily disasters that they’re served, with help from Kara’s garden. It’s a small impact, but it makes the days pass more quickly to be occupied.

Every time she gains access to a new room, she raids it discreetly for books or magazines. Apart from an overabundance of Bibles and ancient parish newsletters, most times she comes up short. Running out of tasks, Cat refreshes her German by reading a Bible in that language side-by-side with the English. She doesn’t get bored enough to attempt the same with Latin. 

In the middle of her third week in hiding, Cat comes back to her cell and startles at the sight of a book on her one, unsatisfactory pillow. She’s developing a crick in her neck from it, but despite polite enquiries another one has not been forthcoming. She’s given up changing into her limited choice of clothes, since keeping them clean is a chore she doesn’t care for. Silk and cashmere don’t wash well in tiny sinks. At some point she’s going to have to acquire more underwear, but the book has her intrigued.

 _Les Misérables_ this time, in the original French. She speaks it fluently enough, but other than skimming Le Monde most days she hasn’t read it extensively since college. The pages are worn, the spine cracked. Whoever owned this book has read it time and again. Hearing footsteps in the corridor, Cat strides out to confront her gift-giver.

“You’re spoiling me, Kara.”

“Excuse me?” Kara startles, dropping the stack of plates she was carrying. She moves so quickly to prevent the crash that Cat can’t quite believe what she’s seeing.

“This,” she says, waving the book by way of explanation. “How did you know I speak French?”

“I’m sorry, what?” Kara is staring at the plates like they’ve angered her. “I don’t know where you found the book, Cat, but I’m glad you have something to read.”

“I--”

“These are needed in the kitchen. We’ll talk later?” With that Kara takes off, just a little too fast. Cat feels her curiosity piqued, but the book is calling to her in the meantime. Pulling off her veil, she settles on the floor of her cell in the most comfortable yoga position her robes will allow, and starts to immerse herself in Paris. Who could the book be from, if not from Kara? 

Cat supposes it doesn’t really matter, and loses herself to the story.

***

She’s wiping away tears for Fantine, comfortably tucked up on the bench, when Kara’s grunt of annoyance catches Cat’s attention. There’s some kind of root that doesn’t want to budge, and in trying to pull it up, Kara hikes the hem of her habit to reveal tanned and shapely legs. Cat tells herself it’s being starved for regular human contact, but she drinks in the sight like a CatCo Magazine cover, reveling in every inch. 

Kara glances around, and Cat averts her eyes in time. She looks back to see Kara yank the gnarled, twisted clump of roots out with just one finger, having given herself silent permission to use another of her powers. She’s getting careless, if only around Cat. 

“If we need something from outside, is there anyone we can ask?” Cat asks when Kara is back to tending her seedlings, much more gentle work that draws attention to her long, slender fingers. She could be an artist or a pianist with those hands, maybe a surgeon with enough training. 

“Not really. Alex, sometimes. Common things that nobody would be able to track the purchase of. She brings me candy bars, since my appetites are… well, I’m always hungry on Earth food.”

“I’m running out of clothes, that’s all,” Cat explains. “I know I don’t have to wear anything under this godawful sack--oh, forgive the blasphemy Kara, I don’t see any bolts of lightning--but even La Perla’s finest can’t last forever in this much rotation.”

“Oh. La Perla is…?”

“Lingerie. Underwear. Bras, panties. Thank god I didn’t pack thongs, because under this it’s just asking for unwanted friction. What are you hiding under all that, anyway? Am I underdressed?”

“Oh, um, shorts usually. And a tank top. When I was in high school I used to run, so I like sporty clothes, you know?”

“Well? Let me see. Maybe I could borrow something,” Cat says, her not-the-full-story sense tingling, as it so often does around the sweet Kryptonian. 

“The thing is. Um, well what I mean to say is that sometimes when I’m doing physical work, I guess I don’t sweat like humans, but I prefer to work without uh…” Oh, as blushes go that’s first class. 

“Sister Kara, are you telling me you’re going commando in you nun’s habit?”

“It’s how we wore our robes on Krypton!” Kara protests. “They had long sashes, so we could preserve our modesty first and then the main robe went over it, but it’s the same idea.”

“You’re just full of surprises.” Cat makes a production out of returning to her book. She’s not thinking about revolution anymore, but of exactly how shapely Kara must be under that thick material, if her legs are any indication. There’s an insistent throb between Cat’s thighs, a reminder that she hasn’t touched herself in any meaningful sense since arriving at the damn convent. The weight of all the guilt and shame preached to her in her formative years have stilled her fingers whenever she’s dared to think about it. 

“You could mention it to Sister Nia,” Kara says a few minutes later. “She runs the laundry services and could help with the clothes you already have, too.”

“I will,” Cat replies, stretching her legs out in front of her on the bench. 

***

Nia offers an apologetic smile and shows Cat how to do some proper laundry, but there’s nothing much in the way of spare clothing. They briefly rummage in the lost property but Cat almost passes out at the thought of letting those dusty, ugly relics anywhere near her body.

Not that she has to worry for long. A few days later her pillow is occupied again, this time with two simple camisoles in a pearl-gray satin that doesn’t scratch or irritate her skin. Beneath those a small packet of simple white bikini cut briefs, not any brand that Cat recognises, but the cotton is comfortable all the same. _It’s not forever_ she tells herself. In a few weeks she’ll be in court, surely, wearing all her finest clothes again. She’ll have Eve call around a few designers and see what new, exciting things they’ll want to put on Cat’s body in front of all those cameras at the courthouse. 

She thanks Nia, who stares at her in confusion. Then Kara, who denies all knowledge of another gift left in Cat’s room. 

“I suppose I thought, with you being right next door…” Cat tries to tell her, but Kara shakes her head. They’re walking back to cells after vespers, the sung prayers in the evening that Cat has found herself reluctant to skip. There’s something about those beautiful choral sounds at the end of the day. “In fact, I’ve never seen your room. Can I come in?”

For a moment it seems like Kara means to refuse, but she pushes the door fully open and steps back so Cat can enter. It’s more lived in than her own space, that much is obvious. Cat drinks it all in like a crime scene, determined not to miss a detail. Shelves hold the folded leisurewear Kara spoke of, and she has a bigger lamp than the one Cat uses to read by. Hanging from it is a silver pendant, and Cat wonders why Kara wouldn’t wear it during the day, opting for the standard heavy crucifix like the other sisters favor. 

It’s only when she turns that Cat sees the art. Beautiful landscapes in charcoal, a scant few in color pastels. The sense of loss is palpable in the least recognizable of them, the ones that glow under a red sun the likes of which Cat has never seen. All the sketches are carefully taped to the wall, clearly in some kind of order. Every so often a face appears, a familiar one from the convent, and a couple of Alex are in evidence, one with a kind-looking woman who must be her mother, Kara’s foster mother.

She’s surprised to see her own face at the end of the row, closest to the wall Kara would face when she’s sleeping. 

“You have real talent,” Cat says. “I’ve got professional photographers who can’t capture me that well.”

“It keeps me busy,” is all Kara will say. “Like you and your reading.”

“I could sit for you sometime,” Cat suggests. “Then you wouldn’t have to be alone while you draw. You wouldn’t have to do it all from memory.”

“You mean draw me like one of your French girls?” Kara asks with a frown. “Yes, I saw Titanic before I came here.”

“I should go to bed,” Cat says, because the space seems suddenly too small, and far too intimate. “See if the world’s flattest pillow has gotten anymore accommodating. Goodnight, Kara.”

It’s just instinct that makes her lean across the short distance and kiss Kara on the cheek. “Thank you for sharing all this with me.”

She walks off to her room next door, and doesn’t dare look back. If Kara’s cheek is tingling the way Cat’s lips are, then they’re both in a world of trouble.

***

When she comes back to find a second pillow on her bed, Cat sees through the flimsy denials once and for all. She marches right into Kara’s room and confirms her theory with the lack of pillow there.

“Cat!” Kara scrabbles from where she’s been doing some kind of exercise on the floor. It’s only as she stands that Cat takes in the full, glorious sight of Kara out of her habit. Instead she’s wearing a crop top and running shorts, her abs prominently on display along with upper arms that make Cat want to take up sculpting.

“Jesus,” she whispers, and Kara only tilts her head. 

“No, Kara,” she jokes, but neither of them is laughing. 

“You, you’re giving me things like some… some secret admirer!” Cat accuses. “What I don’t understand is why you’d start lying about it after quite merrily handing Jane Eyre to me like it was nothing.”

“It’s not nothing,” Kara replies. “I had to sneak out for the clothes. There aren’t many stores that sell clothes, certainly nothing as fancy as you deserve. I can do it because I can move fast if I have to, but I still shouldn’t have done it. I just… I want you to have nice things, Cat. You don’t deserve to be miserable here.”

“Then why not take credit? Honestly Kara, if you let people walk all over you and don’t speak up when you’ve done something impressive…”

“Because…” Kara is blushing again, and it’s even more attractive in her sporty spice mode. “Because you _hugged_ me when I gave you the book. Do you know how often I get to hug people? Even though I learned to control my powers, I almost never get a chance. And I liked it! I liked it so much I didn’t want to let go. I couldn’t face that kind of temptation again, so I pretended it wasn’t me.”

“Temptation? Kara, you don’t believe feelings like that are a sin. Even if the Church taught that, which it shouldn’t, you believe in a god who isn’t even… well, there can’t be any punishment from Rao, can there? They already took everything they could from you.”

Kara sits on her bed, dropping her head back as she sighs. “I’ve spent all my time on Earth trying to fit in, trying to be the perfect little alien. That way no one could send me away or tell me I was too different. I know there are places where women can have feelings for other women, but I’m already at so much risk. It’s why I let Alex bring me here instead of fighting the registrations.”

Cat realizes she’s blown the lid clean off Pandora’s box, and puts her own feelings aside for the moment. This is a girl in need of reassurance, she deserves to be comforted and cared for, not just locked away where it’s safe. Safety is no kind of life, something Cat is painfully aware of every day.

“You said you can sneak out,” Cat says. “I’m going to put my normal clothes on, and so are you. Then we’re going to take some of my cash and find a dark corner in that bar across the street, okay? You can tell me anything, everything, and there will be as many hugs as you want.”

“But—“

“Chop, chop,” Cat says. “I’m looking forward to seeing these powers of yours."

***

Kara is skittish as they duck out behind the small shed that sits between the convent doors and the garden walls. It’s the last bit of cover they have before they can make a break for the real world, where they’ll fall into step on the street and pretend they were there the whole time. 

“This is too risky,” Kara says for the third time, but there’s no mistaking the glint in her eye at the prospect of adventure. “I think we need to do this a little differently. Can you… here, step in like you’re hugging me and I’ll move us so nobody can see.”

Cat would usually make an inappropriate comment about that being a flimsy excuse, but the memory of Kara blushing and flustered is too fresh in her mind. Despite these superpowers that Cat has seen in flashes, a strong urge to protect Kara keeps rising up like a more pleasant form of indigestion. 

Strong arms are around her and then before Cat can blink, they’re standing outside the bar’s fire exit, propped open with a keg in violation of any number of safety laws. Despite the obvious grime, Cat’s heart ticks up a beat at the smell of hops and cigarette smoke, and the thudding bass of a sound system too powerful for the space it’s in. 

“Come on,” Cat says, slipping a hand in the pocket of her black skinny jeans to confirm she brought a roll of banknotes. Paired with a fitted blue t-shirt, she isn’t looking to turn any heads, but she’s got some light makeup on her face for a change, her hair finger-curled after a brisk shower. It needs conditioner and a month of regular blowouts, but she feels light on her feet and comfortable in her skin for the first time in weeks. 

“Wow,” Kara says under her breath as they step inside. Cat doesn’t get to find out if that’s wonder or disgust, because the jukebox with its fairground glow has drawn Kara in like a magnet. 

Music can wait. Cat steps up to the bar and waves a crisply folded twenty at the barkeep. 

“You’re new,” he says, slinging a stained dishcloth over his shoulder. He’s wearing a leather biker vest with nothing but a tapestry of tattoos underneath, all of which only emphasises his big and muscular frame. Usually Cat would at least quirk an eyebrow to find someone in good shape in a dive like this, but she has other priorities. 

“New, yes, and in need of a Scotch old enough to buy me a double Scotch,” she says. “Got anything good on those shelves?”

He smirks and turns away to the bottles on the far end. It pleases Cat that he does patronize her about how she wants it served. This is no time for anything but straight up. The glass he sets down is clean, and although his large hand obscures most of the label, Cat knows on the first sip that it’s a damn fine single malt. 

“Don’t go too far,” she warns, turning to ask Kara what she’s drinking. It’s going to be something excruciating, and Cat absolutely draws the line at ordering a Shirley Temple in a place like this. Only Kara is still flipping through songs, so Cat slides her money to the bartender and takes her drink back across the room.

“You know, they probably don’t have songs from The Little Mermaid on there,” Cat teases, leaning against the side of the jukebox. She filters the attention coming their way from every side of the room with an exhausted kind of ease. Standard lechery and a few disgruntled glares from those who didn’t want women in their bars at all. That, Cat could handle.

“No, but they have Carole King,” Kara said, slipping some quarters into the slot. “Tapestry was the first album I heard… well, you know. My foster mom was playing it, and it always feels like home to me.”

“I was trying to buy you a drink,” Cat points out. “So I’ll take anything but Smackwater Jack and your order, hmm?”

“Oh, just a Coke is fine,” Kara says, pressing the buttons for her songs. “I can get my own, I mean--”

“You busted us out, so drinks are on me,” Cat insists, only sensing the presence at her elbow halfway through speaking. A biker type, more hair than anything else, has decided to welcome them personally. 

“Busted out of where, ladies?”

“Oh, Metro Correctional,” Kara answers, startling Cat into silence. “They framed us for killing her husband.”

“But you didn’t do it?” Biker boy asks with a leer that’s right down Kara’s tank top, even though she’s mostly covered by a cutesy pastel cardigan. “Figures, nice girls like you.”

“No,” Cat joins in, mostly because she loathes still being referred to as a girl. “But since our alibi was killing _her_ husband, we had to make a break for it.”

Something in her tone convinces him, because half a second later he’s backing away with a muttered, _have a nice evening, ladies._ They let him get out of sight before dissolving in silent laughter. 

“I didn’t know you had it in you,” Cat confesses, finishing her drink and steering Kara back to the bar. Her glass is promptly refilled, and she orders for Kara, nudging her aside when the bartender’s gaze lingers a little too long. Tonight she’s not much inclined to share, not when she finally has Kara away from the whispers and judging walls of the convent.

It’s so easy to steer Kara away from the men at the bar, she responds to Cat’s most delicate touch like the steering on her much-missed Ferrari, currently tucked in her plane hangar. Unless the criminals after her have already torched the place. Cat suppresses a shudder and they take up a small table on its own in the darkest corner. 

“Here,” Kara says, sliding a folded newspaper across the table to Cat. She frowns at the Daily Planet logo out of habit, and it’s a couple of days out of date by Cat’s own count, but the gesture touches her all the same. “I figured you’d need your fix, so I grabbed it on the way over.”

“Do you mind if--”

“Go for it,” Kara says, sipping at her Coke. She plucks the wilted lemon slice from the top and sucks on it before balling it up in her napkin. “It will let me keep watch for a few minutes. I’m still not sure we scared the other patrons off.”

Cat grunts in acknowledgment, but she’s already scanning the printed front page, turning to the inside. She has three criticisms of the headlines, the placement, and the fact that Lois has yet another front page before she even realizes the jolt of pure news coursing through her veins. It’s almost a relief that there’s so little mention of her, or her case. Just a gossip item saying Cat still hasn’t been seen around the office, but she’s been cavorting (yes, that actual word) with a former Brat Packer in the Maldives. She wonders if that means Rob Lowe is enjoying a free vacation on the government’s dime just for going along with it. Maybe she owes him a drink after all. 

By the time she’s left with nothing but sports, Kara has finally relaxed back against her chair, taking her cardigan off in the process. It’s not that the arms are a distraction, per se, but they certainly kill off what limited interest Cat has in the National City Astros.

“See? This is nice,” she says, pleased when Kara’s attention snaps right to her. “Now let’s pretend we do this every week. Tell me more about your life. Your real life, before _there_.”

“Not a lot to tell,” Kara replies with a shrug. “My foster family were great, they did everything to help me feel at home here. I went to school, college, even. I was like, eight credits from graduating when things got too bad. Alex held off as long as she could, but when the raids started…”

Cat nods. CatCo covered those dark days extensively, but she’s never found any words sufficient for how wrong it all was. How so much still isn’t put right.

“But you know that some things have improved? That registration now does mean citizenship? There are still bigots, of course, but it is improving. Your sister won’t have to hide you away forever.”

“No, she might,” Kara says. “My mother was a judge, back on Krypton. She put away a lot of criminals who have now escaped, or who left behind people holding a grudge. I’m a target for a lot of bad people. Plus, it just adds to the ‘violent aliens’ narrative if I’m out there walking around. If it keeps the peace, sometimes you just have to make the sacrifice. Like you are, so you can help put those criminals away.”

“Right, but I agreed because it’s temporary,” Cat has to persist. The more she knows Kara, the more of a waste it is to see her hidden away from the world. She swirls the remaining whisky in her glass. “Isn’t it possible Alex is being overprotective? That you’re both so used to things being terrible that you can’t tell when they’re getting better?”

“Alex just wants to keep me safe. I’m so grateful to her. I can’t go asking to leave, just so I can get ice cream or something.”

Those perfect shoulders are tensed again, and Kara pushes her glasses a little higher on her nose. Cat has hit this wall in almost every interview she’s done, and she knows how to handle it.

“Yes, but what about the rest of your life, Kara?” That one lands. “What about meeting someone, about making a home of your own? Did you ever consider having kids, one day? I mean, assuming…”

“You must miss your boys,” Kara answers after a moment, shutting Cat down quite effectively. Even Taylor Swift isn’t this good. “I read about you, on some of my trips out. It’s enough, honestly. I have a good life, and the church really does remind me of our old gods.”

“And in the meantime you’re just… avoiding temptation,” Cat finishes the thought. She must have lost more tolerance than she thought, because there’s a light buzz from her second double. The jukebox finally whirrs around to Kara’s selection, and Cat instinctively taps her fingers to the beat of _I Feel The Earth Move_. The song has always made her want to move along with it.

“Is it…” Kara looks around again. “Do you dance?”

“We’ll be the only ones.”

“So?” Kara drains her glass and stands, downright chivalrous in the way she extends a hand to Cat. “I think I can handle a little temptation.”

It’s silly, something out of her college drinking days, to dance close together in a bar that isn’t built for it. But the volume of the music and those relentless piano chords have Cat stirring, and it’s a relief after all the silent stone corridors and the funereal dirges of Catholic hymns, just to be two women having a drink and dancing together. 

“I do think about it,” Kara leans in to say over the song. “Love, family, a home… I gave up on all that when your country turned against me.”

“Kara, I’m sorry, I--”

“That’s why I don’t let myself get tempted. I can’t like anyone or anything too much, because I have all this love inside me just waiting.” Kara keeps moving, her moves exuberant even though her face is serious. “And if I ever start to let it out, I don’t know if I could stop.”

Cat understands that. Wants to tell Kara that it’s okay to be scared, to worry that letting that first crack happen will break her. It happened to Cat when Adam was born, and again in a much worse way when she let him go. It made her first moments with Carter paralyzing, but when the love flowed through her, Cat had survived it all. 

“When I get out of here,” Cat says, grasping for Kara’s hand and holding it even as they keep dancing. “I’m going to make it safe for you. Anything your sister says you need, I’ll make it happen. Money, somewhere to live, a favor from the President? Anything, I promise.”

The music fades out and the next track loads. 

“You won’t remember me in a week,” Kara says, but not unkindly. There’s even a twinkle in her eye. “I’m sure when you’re back in your busy, important life, I’ll just be some nun who shared her books with you. It’s okay. I’m just glad I get to know you at all.”

The music kicks in again then, covering for Cat’s uncharacteristic lack of comeback. Can Kara really think she’s so forgettable? That her kindness in this most horrible experience means nothing? But then Cat recognizes the song, her favorite ode to a few fond one-night stands. _Will You Love Me Tomorrow?_ has always appealed to the melancholic in her, and she’s surprised an optimist like Kara has picked it. 

“It’s beautiful, right?” Kara says, as though Cat questioned her out loud. “Not really a dancing song, well, maybe a slow dance I guess, but--”

Cat reaches over and pulls her close, into the best approximation of a slow dance hold she can fashion them into at first grip. Kara’s hands settle more naturally as they start to move together, and when Cat is confident they’re doing this, she lets her head rest against Kara’s shoulder. 

God, it feels nice. Better than nice. For the first time in months and months, Cat actually feels safe. 

And this fucking song has always made her cry.

“Hey,” Kara murmurs, her hand now rubbing gently on Cat’s back. “Is this okay?”

“More than,” Cat replies, pulling back to wipe her tears and look at Kara. “Almost tempting, in fact.”

“Oh?” Kara bites her bottom lip, and it shouldn’t be so attractive that she blushes at even the thought. Cat ups the ante by placing her palm gently against Kara’s cheek. It’s a question, and an easy way out. Doesn’t have to be anything more than a friendly gesture. 

Until Kara turns her face and presses a hesitant, slightly clumsy kiss against Cat’s palm. Then another, right on the most sensitive point of Cat’s wrist. 

A spark.

Ignition.

Kara takes Cat hand and lowers it, leaning in to kiss her on the lips in the same fluid movement. 

But just as they make contact, a loud roar goes up from the other end of the bar. Fearing the worst, both women spring apart. Cat notices right away that they’re not the reason for the uproar, but there’s a fight breaking out with some horrid xenophobic shouts. They don’t even have to discuss it, Kara is tugging Cat along with her to the side door they came in, and another close-hugging whoosh later they’re back behind the high walls of the convent.

“Oh damn, we overshot,” Kara says, her tone all apology. “And I think we’re right in the zucchini patch.”

Cat looks down at the dirt on the one good pair of heels she brought with her. She can’t bring herself to care.

“We’re safe,” she says, for her own benefit as much as anything else. “That wasn’t about us… but…”

“It was a risk,” Kara concludes, stepping onto the path and watching as Cat follows. “I said that right at the start, and I should have listened to myself. Those men could have been anything… bigots, homophobes, anti-alien… you heard some of the words they were throwing around. Or they could have been cops, Feds, ones on some mob payroll who’d report back on you. I forgot how recognizable you are, Cat. I let myself forget.”

“Kara, wait--” Cat grabs for her arm, but Kara is too quick in moving aside. 

“We should go in separately,” Kara says. “It makes less noise. I’ll leave door ajar for you, close it quietly behind you.”

There’s no time to argue, so Cat waits a minute or two in the cool evening air before slipping off her heels and following in Kara’s footsteps. She isn’t surprised when she walks past the door of Kara’s cell to find it closed. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cat and Kara navigate convent life after their kiss. Is Cat's court case about to take her away?

The brief sojourn into the great outside only makes the convent walls seem higher and closer than ever. More than once in a day, Cat finds herself seeking out a quiet corner and having to regulate her breathing. It’s as though the very building is squeezing the air from her lungs if she stops concentrating for even a second. Not helped, of course, by Kara’s sudden absence from her life. The gardens remain tended, but no matter what time Cat sneaks out there to pick something for the kitchens, their gardener is nowhere in sight. Kara’s cell is still filled with her things, she still seems to sleep there at night, but she renders herself all but invisible.

Cat wishes she’d had a chance to ask Kara if invisibility is one of her secret powers.

“You have a visitor,” Sister Siobhan comes to tell Cat, interrupting a tedious hour of polishing brass ornaments in the side chapel, the creamy cleaner and its toxic fumes threatening to bring on a migraine. It’s only on the short walk to Mother Superior’s office that Cat becomes aware of the habit again, it’s tough material rubbing against itself in the endless folds as she walks. Even with Nia’s sewing lessons, Cat hasn’t been able to do much about how it hangs on her, shapeless and drab. 

“Sister Catherine,” M’gann welcomes her, indicating that she should take a seat. “I haven’t heard much news of you in recent days. Has there been a problem?”

The appraising look is one Cat has used on countless employees. It suggests this Mother Superior knows all about the little excursion, and that Kara is suddenly a ghost instead of a constant presence. It’s unsettling to be on the receiving end.

“No. Everything’s as boring as ever.”

“I asked Sister Kara how you were doing. She seemed unusually vague…” Mother Superior picks up a crystal glass that sits beside the closed bible on her desk. It’s almost certainly water, but it amuses Cat to think it might be neat vodka instead. 

“I was told I had a visitor?” Cat has no intention of discussing her relationship with her fellow inmate at this particular asylum.

“To be more accurate, you will have a visitor. The FBI called to say they’re sending a car for you. They’ll be here in about an hour.”

Cat almost falls out of her chair from how quickly she leans forward. Freedom, sweet freedom. She’s become so resigned to her fate here that the prospect of going back to her real life has become a dim hope, not the beacon she clung to in the first days and weeks. 

“They’ve set a date?”

“I believe they want to record your testimony first, at a secret location. The trial begins later this week.”

Despite the rush of endorphins, Cat feels a familiar spike amidst the flow. She’s come to rely on it as a warning of sorts, an innate sense that something she’s heard doesn’t entirely make sense, even if she isn’t particularly paying attention at the time. That instinct has given her everything from a company to a father for her youngest son, a signal to stop going with the tide and start asking hard questions. 

“We could have recorded my testimony any time before I left; it wasn’t like we didn’t negotiate for days and days about the terms of my cooperation. Video is worthless anyway, the accused all have a sixth amendment right to question the witness too. Video’s no more than hearsay if anything… happens to me.”

“I can only tell you the message I was given,” M’gann says, holding up her hands in apology.

“Did Agent Danvers say anything else?” Cat stands, irritated by the wave of fabric that comes with her. 

“It wasn’t Agent Danvers.”

That’s enough to turn Cat’s blood to ice. “Why wasn’t it her? She told me not to speak to anyone but her.”

“Ms Grant, they’re a big organization and sometimes one agent isn’t always available to hold your hand. The arrangements have been made, and they’re perfectly legitimate. Don’t you want to get back to CatCo? Or is there something so appealing about our modest little convent that you want to stay on? Don’t tell me you’ve found religion…”

Cat snorts. If there’s one thing this sabbatical has guaranteed, it’s her shift from agnosticism to being a full-blown atheist. 

“I won’t go with them, not without reassurances.”

“We can only harbor you so long,” M’gann warns. “I appreciate your plight, but my first responsibility is to the sisters who offered sanctuary in the first place, and the most vulnerable among us here. Those who seek you are just as big a threat to some of the other nuns. I’m sure by now a journalist of your caliber has a good idea why.”

“Then I’ll go pack,” Cat says, sweeping towards the door. At least the habit is good for a dramatic exit. “Tell the agents when they come that I’ll meet them out front.”

“As you wish,” M’gann replies, apparently relieved to have another problem off her hands. “It’s nothing personal, Ms Grant. I hope you understand that.”

“Of course.” Cat almost sprints down the corridor when she takes her leave. 

Kara. She has to find Kara.

***

“The belltower, Kara? Really?”

When she looks hard enough, Kara isn’t all that hard to find. Cat wonders if that means she’s subconsciously been avoiding Kara every bit as much. Not that there’s much time for idle wondering, not with the so-called FBI less than an hour out.

“If you’re going to make Quasimodo jokes, I should really be getting back to the garden.” Kara doesn’t look up from where she’s fixing new ropes to the heavy brass bells that hang over a deep pit. The balcony they’re standing on feels a little too flimsy whenever Cat looks down, and so she doesn’t. 

“You haven’t been in the garden. At least, not at your usual times. You’re avoiding me, and maybe you have good reason, but that stops now.”

“Sister Catherine--”

“Call me _Cat,_ ” she says, it comes out more like a hiss. That was their deal, always Cat and Kara in private. “When was the last time you talked to Alex?”

“Alex?”

“Yes, your sister.”

“Yesterday, why?” Kara has her sleeves rolled up so they won’t tangle in the ropes, and when she pulls taut on one of the thick cords, her arms flex in a way that’s downright distracting. For once, Cat can’t allow herself to enjoy it.

“Did she mention anything about visiting? About me?”

Kara shakes her head, muscles still rippling as she tests that the next rope will hold. “Just our usual chat when she can’t make it down here. I thought your trial wasn’t for weeks? That’s what she said last time but one.”

“Would she ever let another agent talk to you if she couldn’t make her calls or visits?” Cat asks, desperate now. She stalks around the wooden platform toward Kara, who’s backing away.

“I don’t know if we should be talking about this stuff. Alex always says patterns are bad. Anyway, I should get back down--”

Cat grabs at a rope behind Kara and loops it around her waist. It should be a futile gesture, they both know Kara has speed and strength enough that nothing Cat does will stop her. Still, it’s a nice way to drag Kara close, and from the way she keeps glancing at Cat’s lips, their near miss isn’t quite forgotten. 

“Kara, if I’m right about this… if there was a leak, if these aren’t real agents coming for me, do I need to list all the potential ways it could be a trap? I need you to find a way to contact your sister--safely, of course--and find out if I should go with these people or start running now. _Now,_ Kara.”

“Okay, don’t hate me for this but…” Kara whooshes away and reappears a moment later with a cell phone in her hand. It’s a blocky thing, at least ten years old, and while there’s not a chance it supports email or internet, Cat still itches to hold it. 

“You’ve had a phone the whole time?” Cat struggles to keep her voice level.

“For e-mer-gencies,” Kara over enunciates, frowning behind the glasses that don’t help her vision one bit. “I don’t get much chance to charge it, so I use it as little as possible and keep it turned off.”

“Just…” Cat wiggles her fingers before turning away in disgust. “Get me an answer.”

“You could say please,” Kara mutters, but she’s dialling. “Hey, it’s me. I’m with Cat. We need to know something.”

Cat doesn’t need to listen to the rest. It’s written all over Kara’s face in the first pause when Alex answers her. It’s not real. It’s not a way out. Cat’s worst nightmare is bearing down on her and she’s just a sitting duck. Then the real dread hits.

“Are they--”

“Alex, I know what I need to do here. Did you check on Ms Grant’s sons?” It’s a relief that Kara knows without Cat having to put the thought into words. An interminable pause, then Kara gives a brief thumbs up. They’re still safe. 

Cat feels her knees give out just a little, and before she can fall against the railing that rings the balcony, Kara has ended her call and is supporting Cat with strong arms around her waist. 

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. Alex is already on it, she has a team nearby she can call on but they won’t know why. I need to go tell M’gann, she’ll have to move everyone out to another church across the county line.”

Then Kara goes rigid. Cat turns to look at her, and the worry on Kara’s expression isn’t comforting at all.

“What is it?”

“Tires. Cars. They’re almost here, going much too fast. There’s no time to get everyone away, not without a distraction.”

“Kara--”

“Stay here,” Kara says, ready to disappear. “I have to… I might have to do some things and I can’t do it unless I know you’re safe. Promise?”

“They’re here for me!” Every nerve in Cat’s body is screaming for her to run. Hiding in the midst of danger feels like asking for trouble. How are a bunch of nuns and a strong alien going to protect her from trained killers? 

“Let me protect you,” Kara says, and when Cat keeps protesting it leads to the only effective way of shutting her up. 

That means Kara’s soft, insistent lips against her own, in a kiss that makes her knees want to give out all over again. The pressure is delightful, and they fit together like they were sculpted that way. All too soon it’s over, and Cat can’t think straight at all.

“Stay here.” Another glimmer of a kiss. “I can do this.”

With that, Kara is in motion once more, habit trailing out behind her for all the world like a cape.

***

The one advantage of the belltower is the view it gives over the church grounds, once Cat wrestles a shutter open anyway.

To her relief, M’gann is leading a procession of nuns to a waiting school bus out back, and they’re trailing through Kara’s neatly-tended gardens like, well, a parade of penguins at the zoo. Only when she sees them dutifully loaded onto an old school bus with M’gann at the wheel does Cat relax even a fraction. To have them harmed, to have that on her conscience, would be unthinkable.

It does beg the question of why no one has volunteered to stay and help Kara. Of course she has powers, superpowers even, but the girl can’t be any kind of tactician in a fight. What experience has she had? M’gann or some of the others must have powers too, but they’re all running from danger in the same Cat has by coming here. 

She’s had enough of running.

Step by step she descends the stairs from the belltower, keeping her tread light so nothing creaks to give her away. She considers the room at the bottom, unsurprisingly the space is lacking in obvious weapons. Still, there’s a metal pole of some description in the corner, and Cat is pleased when she lifts it that she’s strong enough to properly wield it. She can do some damage if it comes to it. 

Stealth remains her best option, though. She slips out of the heavy oak doors into the overgrown parking lot, its tarmac dotted with potholes and speckled with weeds. Three bulky SUVs, not unlike the ones that brought her here, are idling just inside the ornate iron gates. The gates themselves have offered little protection in the face of assault, blown open and one contorted to the side as though wounded by the monstrous vehicles.

The men who’ve spilled out--yes, all men Cat confirms with a sweeping glance from her corner--aren’t in uniforms, but there’s a uniformity to their dress all the same. Dark clothing, camo gear, and enough artillery to get the NRA excited, they’re all locked in some kind of engagement with Kara, the seeming stillness at the eye of the storm.

Kara affects no fighting stance, makes no gesture that belongs to martial arts. She stands, resolute and steady in her nun’s habit, hands clasped in front of her. Not in prayer, but white-knuckled as though forcing herself not to let them form fists just yet.

It’s quite something to watch bullet after bullet bounce off her, and the effect is nothing like the movies would have Cat believe. They don’t even impact, not really. There’s no flinch from Kara, the bullets simply stop before falling to the ground. She’s letting them burn through their ammo, which is smarter than Cat would have given credit for. It also makes it safer for her to defend her own corner as needed.

“Leave here,” Kara commands and they actually pause for a second at the calm authority in her voice. Cat certainly feels it, right between her legs. This is really not the time to be noticing how attractive Kara is in full defiance mode, but it’s hard to miss. 

“We have no beef with you, alien,” the largest of the men shouts back at her, waving the submachine gun that’s been so ineffectual. “Just get out of our way so we can collect what we came for, and nobody needs to get hurt.”

“You can’t hurt me,” Kara points out. She takes a few steps toward the nearest thug and crushes the barrel of his gun with her left hand. “And I won’t let you hurt anyone else.”

When she takes her first swing it’s at the nearest car, leaving a dent in the hood that exposes part of the engine. Kara shakes her head and hits it again. This time the metal holds, but the impact is still pronounced even from a good few feet away in Cat’s position. That’s when she realizes what Kara is doing: calibrating. 

However strong she is, Kara seems to be aware that she can hit too hard, that her blows could kill a man without much exertion on her part. This way, as she starts hitting out at them, one after the other, her blows will knock them into walls and knock them out, but the bodies that start to litter the ground are still intact, still breathing. 

Unfortunately the fight proves too much of a distraction. Cat is watching Kara’s punch sending some seven-foot man ten feet through the air in a perfect parabola, when she hears the crunch of gravel at her back.

“Cat!” Kara cries out, but even as she’s zipping across to defend the incoming blow, Cat is already in motion, swinging the hefty metal she grabbed at her attacker’s head. He crumples under the blow, down in one, and Cat can’t help but preen a little. 

“When did you learn to…?” Kara is just staring at the vanquished foe.

“Bodyguards only do so much, Kara. There’s always a risk someone will get close. Too close. I had to be able to defend myself. And my boys, of course.”

Kara scrunches her nose a little, in a way Cat has come to realize means there’s something difficult that Kara doesn’t want to say. They’re briefly interrupted by the last of the hired goons rushing Kara, but she takes them both out by flicking her heavy dark nun’s habit like a bullfighter’s cape. Cat thinks it really ought to be red, if she has moves like that.

“Ask me, Kara. I can tell what you’re stumbling over.”

“If you have all that money for guards, and can defend yourself on top of that… why come here? Why put everyone else at risk by hiding here? You didn’t know I had powers, that I could defend you all.”

“First of all: Cat Grant doesn’t hide. Period. But there comes a time when the risk is so great that I had to put other people first, mostly my sons. By choosing to give this evidence, I’m not just clearing my conscience, Kara. I make myself the lightning rod, something to distract them and obsess over because they can’t get to me. If that buys the other people in the case even an hour of safety, of being off the radar, then I’m the only one in a position to do that. They don’t just kill witnesses. They kill cops, they kill federal agents.”

Kara twitches her head in acknowledgment. Now she gets it. 

“So you just sat down and decided that, huh?” is her next question.

“No,” Cat replies. “There was a near miss. Carter wasn’t waiting for pickup at school, and there was a faked email from me authorizing some woman I’d never heard of to pick him up. I assume she was with the gang, probably didn’t have much choice in the matter. If Carter hadn’t insisted that I would have called him to tell him, not just emailed, they would have taken him.”

“As leverage?” Kara asks, and there’s hope in her voice like she needs that to be true. 

“No, I imagine to send back to me…” Cat struggles for a moment, even the half-thought making bile rise in her throat. But she isn’t about to start backing down from saying the hard truths now. “Send back to me in pieces.”

It makes the quiet parking lot all the more absurd. None of the beaten men are stirring, but Cat still feels an uncomfortable chill up her spine. She steps closer to Kara, kicking at the man on the ground to be sure.

“They’ll send more,” she realizes out loud. “Now they know, they won’t stop until they get what they came for. And the one thing they have to spare is manpower, especially if they find out the first posse haven’t been killed.”

“Alex and I have a plan. If ever anyone came, if the raids started again. We couldn’t talk for long and I can’t take the phone in case they trace it, but there’s room enough to bring you with me.”

“Well, I don’t want to stay here.” Cat commends herself on not answering with something far more sarcastic. “So by all means, count me in for the full Thelma and Louise experience. Are we taking one of these handily abandoned cars, or…?” She waves to the SUVs with their open doors, engines still idling. 

“No.” Kara takes the phone she had earlier and crushes it in one hand, almost absent-mindedly. Cat stops mid-thought at the casual display of might. 

“Well, can we at least change?”

“No, we should stick to the habits for now. They’ll still be useful, especially while we’re flying. I mean, I can explain the aerodynamics but it’s kind of long and dorky, so maybe--”

Cat steps in close, laying a placating hand on Kara’s chest. “If we’re flying out of here then let’s go. The fewer witnesses, the better.”

Kara looks down at Cat’s hand, as though still mystified that someone is really touching her. Then a strong arm is around Cat’s waist, and she’s hurtling through the air. 

***

“This has got to be some kind of cosmic joke,” Cat says when they land, hard. Sand scatters in every direction from the impact of Kara’s feet, clad in running shoes that don’t belong to her outfit at all. 

“What?” Kara is giving their surroundings that intense gaze that Cat suspects is some kind of scanning. 

“Your grand escape from a compromised church is… another, smaller church?” Cat gestures towards the cute grey-brick building. Unlike the convent they’ve just left, this building is compact and slightly more modern, but the aura of it all still gives her that familiar shiver. 

“The town that made up most of this parish was lost to a landslide last year,” Kara explains, as though it will make their surroundings more bearable. “The church was untouched--they even tried to call it a miracle--but the people didn’t come back. Alex and I thought sticking to the same kind of place would throw off anyone chasing us. So far, so good.”

“Good?”

“Don’t scoff like that, it’s a safe place and it’s only for one night.” Kara gestures to the doors, leading Cat toward them when she remains planted at the foot of the steps. “I brought some supplies, I know you didn’t have time to pack a bag.”

“I brought essentials,” Cat says with a little sniff. “I’ve been customizing this shapeless nightmare, sewed a few pockets into it. Enough to keep some cash, my jewelry... what?” She asks off Kara’s quizzical look. “I needed a project when you started avoiding me.”

Which only serves to remind Kara why she’s been emotionally on the run. As soon as they’re inside and the heavy doors are bolted, she strides down the centre aisle and settles in a pew on the right hand side. To Cat’s surprise, Kara simply slides to her knees, clasps her hands, and bows her head in silent prayer. 

Well. That’s one way to ignore someone. Unfortunately for “Sister” Kara, Cat Grant has never been ignored a day in her life. She pulls off the ridiculous veil and shakes her blonde curls loose. What she wouldn’t give for a conditioning treatment and an expert blowout right about now. Still. She’s learned how to work with what she has, and Cat knows she has a lot more than most people.

“Praying to Romeo?” Cat tries interrupting. “Or whatever you called him.”

A quiet torrent of Kryptonian is her only response, pointedly rising on the word _Rao._ Fine, so maybe Cat had known the correct name all along. Now that the adrenaline of the attack has worn off, she’s struggling not to fall into her usual comedown pattern of snarking and sulking until the brush with mortality has worn off.

And honestly it’s not fair that she doesn’t have any of her usual coping mechanisms. No booze, no rich foods prepared by famous chefs. Cat hasn’t even been taking her Lexapro, difficult though it is on her, because she hasn’t been able to risk any dampening of her senses, even if it would make her feel better. All that leaves is her most socially acceptable coping mechanisms--talking, or ranting, or yelling--or the most appealing one of all: fucking. There’s very little in Cat’s life that hasn’t been solved by a drink or a pill, a long conversation, or a hard and enthusiastic dive between the sheets. 

Well, if Kara isn’t willing to oblige on the chat, perhaps it’s really time for the last temptation. How else are they going to pass the time? Counting communion wafers and playing madlibs with Biblical terms? 

Which makes it time for the infamous Cat Grant stare. She positions herself right in Kara’s eyeline, if she would only unbow her head, and smolders at her as best she can in a shapeless black smock. Thankfully this is a lingerie underneath kind of day, along with the camisole Kara found for her. 

“What?” Kara asks eventually, without looking up. “Can’t you go look around like any other curious human? Find somewhere comfortable for us to wait?”

Cat doesn’t answer. She has patience when it counts. 

“Well?” Kara looks up then, her blue eyes stormy and a frown etched into her otherwise smooth forehead. “What is it, Cat? What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking,” Cat replies, and her voice has dropped half an octave without her say so, into something far deeper, with a husky quality. “That you look good on your knees.”

“Cat…” Kara gets up then, as though to deny Cat even that simple pleasure. “This can’t possibly be the time.”

“If not now, when?” It’s a fair question, and not just because Cat is being denied the one interesting thing she’s found in this whole mess. “I’m really asking, Kara Danvers. When does your life on this planet begin?”

“Just because I’m not falling in to bed with you--and by the way there’s not even a bed here, this church has no convent attached, not even a priest’s house--doesn’t mean I don’t have a life.”

“Oh, I stand corrected. Tell me exactly what this life of yours involves. Growing vegetables? Singing in choir? Finding sweet little gifts to impress the new woman you can’t stop thinking about?”

Kara narrows her eyes at the accusation. They’ve been through this, after all. Unfortunately, Kara has been paying too much attention, because instead of replying, instead of giving Cat the knockdown, drag-out argument that she craves after all these weeks of toeing the line, Kara stalks off down the marble floor of the aisle and takes up refuge behind the altar. It’s dark, heavy wood, carved with elaborate Latin script and a cross that’s about as subtle as Lady Gaga’s touring wardrobe. 

There’s no rush in how Cat approaches, she has no interest in badgering Kara into anything. At this point she just wants to fix something, anything, to show herself that she’s still Cat Grant and the world will bend to her will when there’s something to be made better. 

“So you’ll go back to the convent? If they can secure it?” Cat really wants to know. “When will you leave? Another month, another year? What has to change for you to get out in the world and live the life you were sent here to live, Kara?”

“You don’t know the first thing about why I was sent here.” Kara stands straight and true behind the altar, and Cat sees a flash of something almost arrogant. Clearly, whatever she was on Krypton, Kara has the bearing of nobility. “You don’t know what my parents gave up to save me, or why they did it the way they did.”

“Oh, but I do,” Cat replies, taking a seat on the open front pew. She stretches her arms out to either side, resting them on the back. Crossing one leg over another, she lets the fabric ride up and expose just a shapely calf. It’s almost like being back on her talk show. Wrangle the twitchy guest, the one who’s reluctant to share. Poke and prod, caress and cajole, and then offer up something personal to gain their trust. Only back then, Cat had lines she wouldn’t cross. Using her history with Adam was the firmest of them all. 

“How?” Kara is intrigued, she leans forward and rests her hands on the bare surface of the altar. In another life, Cat might be sizing her up as a reporter about now, finding a mentor in the newsroom to teach her the trade from the ground up. 

“I know more about it than I care to.” Cat will think less of Kara if she leaves it there, if she doesn’t demand detail like Cat herself would have. Once again, Kara avoids disappointing her.

“You can’t just say that! These vague things that don’t really mean anything. People talk to me like that all the time, and I’m tired of it. So either tell me how you know what my parents went through, or stop claiming that you do.”

“Well, I could feed you a bunch of platitudes about how you can’t know love like that until you have a child, or how being a parent changes everything… and yes, it’s true that you can’t, and it does… but what it really means, if you’re doing it right, is loving someone so completely that you love them even more than yourself. Now, if you asked anyone who knows me, or who thinks they know ‘Cat Grant’, they’d probably tell you that’s not possible. And yes, maybe I do have healthier self-esteem than most, but when it comes to my boys…”

Kara stands at the altar, unmoved. 

“My ex-husbands have asked me to give up everything at one point or another. Give up working so many hours, owning so many companies under the CatCo banner, or give up drinking because they didn’t find it ladylike. I refused, almost every time. But when it came to giving up my company for my first son, Adam… Well, let’s just say I fell short.”

“He resents you?” Kara asks, coming around the altar.

“No, no. That would have been bearable. When his father left me, when he wanted to take Adam away from me… I let him. Not because it made my life easier, although in some ways it did. But because it was best for Adam. I gave him a chance at a real life, at happiness and a home that was warm and full of love. I may not have been a good mother to him, not when he was with me. Giving him up? Letting him go? That was maybe the one true act of parenthood I could do for him. No matter how hard it was.”

Kara sits on the broad steps up to the altar, watching Cat intently. “So you understand.”

Cat nods. 

“Which is what gives me room to ask you what you’re playing at, Kara? Your parents could have left you to perish, in theory. It might even have made more sense to send a grown adult in your place, someone who could work and support themselves in a strange new land, instead of a helpless child. But make no mistake, they didn’t send you here to hide. They sent you away to give you a life. To live. To have all the things your broken planet could no longer give you. You got out, and it’s a miracle that you did. Yet you throw that sacrifice back in their faces so you can hide, because it’s _easier_.”

“I don’t get to ask for that,” Kara says, shaking her head. “I don’t get to have the white picket fence and all those dreams that Earthlings seem to live for. I am tolerated on this planet, because I don’t belong here.”

“Bullshit.”

“Excuse me?”

“You can do anything you put your mind to,” Cat argues. “You’re stronger, faster, you have powers that are almost magical. What human could stop you, if you put your mind to it, hmm? I don’t know much about Krypton, but I know you. And whoever you are, Kara Danvers, you were clearly not raised to be a coward.”

“No, you’re wrong. You know nothing after all--” Back on her feet, this is the Kara from their earlier battle, all noble of posture and quietly furious. 

“Don’t I?” Cat lets her own rage course through her veins at last. She’s so tired of control, of rising above, of not admitting to how awful this whole experience has been. All apart from meeting Kara. “Then what about sending both my sons away this time? To guarantee their safety, even though it broke every inch of my heart to do it. I’d have died then and there if I could have been sure it would keep them alive. But yes, I’ve prayed to God--and I’ll pray to your _Rao_ if you like--that Carter and Adam don’t spit it back in my face like you’re doing to the memory of your parents.”

Somewhere in there, Cat gets back on her feet too, stalking toward Kara with one finger raised, jabbing home her points one by one.

“Shut up!” Kara’s voice echoes against the vaulted ceilings. She doesn’t seem anguished, only angry, and damn if it isn’t magnificent on her. 

“Make. Me.” Cat replies, placing her hands on her hips as she comes to a halt mere inches in front of Kara. “Come on, Kryptonian princess. Show me what you’re really made of.”

Cat doesn’t flinch as Kara slips an arm around her waist, yanking her close. It eliminates the distance between them, and Cat can feel all that contained strength pressed against her through their thick robes.

“We shouldn’t,” Kara whispers, their lips almost touching. Her eyes flicker closed, but Cat can’t bear to stop watching, not yet. “Not here, it would be…”

“Blasphemy?” Cat supplies. An age-old thrill courses down her spine. “Well, what has God done for us lately? Take what you want, Kara. You might not get another--”

Kara silences her with a kiss, her free hand fisting in the dark material of Cat’s habit. The kiss is hot and wet and full of sinful intent, which is everything Cat hoped for. 

“Show me,” Kara says in the hesitant nuzzling between kisses. “Show me what I’m missing, Cat.”

“You sure?”

Kara nods. Cat can’t contain a smirk of victory.

“Then Sister, you’d better strap in.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title is a quote from St. Catherine of Siena, just to make sure I get on the fast track in Hell.


End file.
